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Pachter: Mafia II Ailing, RDR Can Still Help Take-Two

Delays aren't usually a good thing, especially when one of your bigger titles may not perform as well as expected.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter spoke to Gamasutra concerning Take-Two's financial situation, and he guesses that Mafia II won't help the company's bottom line. Thankfully, Red Dead Redemption continues to sell like mad, which should help to balance things out a little. Said Pachter:

"Mafia II’s average Metacritic score of 74 is well below expectations, and consumer interest appears to be waning, as the game’s position has dropped in many best-seller lists in its first week. With six years in development, we believe the game is unlikely to achieve profitability."

Take-Two is well known for their teams that utilize long development cycles, and while that often pays off, it may not with Mafia II. It did for RDR but analysts usually suggest that Take-Two could benefit from shorter design cycles, and not quite so many delays. Pachter notes both L.A. Noire and Max Payne 3, both of which have been hit with delays in 2010.

"It is important to note that both games have been in development for longer than five years, making their break-even hurdles significantly higher than a typical game.

With longer development cycles, Take-Two has a profitability threshold higher than its peers," says the analyst. "We believe that the company must focus on streamlining its development process and providing better visibility on future game releases."

Well, Take-Two should be just fine, now that they have a solid new money-making series to go along with Grand Theft Auto. Altering between RDR and GTA year in and year out wouldn't be a bad plan, provided the level of quality didn't drop.

Comments (30 posts)

I understand that some people see delays as a good thing when it comes to gaming. If compared to delays in other fields of the entertainment business, such as music and movies, Mafia II's reception isn't a surprise. When a main act or artist has their project delayed continuously anticipation may or may not grow. Yet expectation does grow and when not met the outcome can be seen as a complete disappointment.

The Ps3's version of Red Dead Redemption is so true to life, that before R* could even get the game out, all their in-game cattle & wild horses ate every single blade of grass right on down to their very roots!!!!

BTW, the shrubs & low hanging branches are next to go too once Buffalo Bill's petting zoo rustles into town the 2nd week of next month.Last edited by BikerSaint on 8/30/2010 10:47:52 PM

Eh, I bought RDR during the hype, I dunno, i just couldn't get into it, honestly, I think I maybe got 3-4 hours into the game before just putting it on my shelf =\ i want to try it out some more but...I just can't seem to find the enthusiasm for it.

I think 2K shot themselves in the foot with the PS3 version of Mafia II.

I went back to play the demo at large; and whilst I did have some fun playing it I am very disappointed in what they have left out visually.

360 version looks much nicer with the proper grass and the AA implementation. I view "technical" laziness as a travesty, I reward technical brilliance but not shoddiness...

The port is a shoddy port and the camera movement is poor. The screen tearing is unacceptable. Therefore they will not be getting any of my money... and that goes for any other "shoddily" made game where I expect, as the customer, only the best... as I expect from all companies and their products that I pay for and serve me.

I love Red Dead Redemption, but Mafia 2? not so much after I tried the demo. It's just my personal taste, I know what I want and what I like in a game. I know few people don't like it because I got thumbs down last time when I said I want to wait till Mafia 2 is cheaper, I guess some people are sensative these days lol.

Honestly, what I've seen of Mafia II makes me want to play it, but not buy or rent it. Quite a quandary...

I'm not really surprised that this game hasn't taken off as many expected it to, after all it's a linear game in an open world and that doesn't really make for a good design IMO. As for RDR helping, well duh, the amount of hype, and sales, are enough to propel it skywards, and I am now expecting a sequel to be announced within the next two years.

Here's the thing, T2 doesn't need a new 'Red Dead' or GTA every two years. People seem to forget that they also have Bioshock, and that should be a huge seller. Besides, with Max Payne 3, L.A. Noire (a must buy for me) and maybe Agent releasing next year from R* alone, I think they'll be right for some time to come.
Peace.

im absolutely loving mafia 2 i think im almost at the end, only thing i HATE about this game is its sustainability!honestly NEVER in my 20+ years of gaming, NEVER have i played a game as unstable as this!im playing it on my 4K PC with dual 470GTXs which should be more than enough recommended specs are 1 470 and 1 9800GTX+ for APEX physX.

ive had so many bugs ranging from cars disappearing to the environments disappearing to bodies floating to sound dropping out to game freezing to getting a windows message saying a error has occurred and the program had to exit.3 times that happened to me last night,3! within a hour!never in my 20 years has that happened to me, but mafia 2 managed to do it 3 times in not even a hour!amazingly pathetic!

do 2K put any polish what so ever into their games?bioshock, need i say more?it really pisses me off to see such a good game spoiled by such a stupid simple thing like this.if 2K dont fix this and im still having these problems by next week im never buying a 2K game ever again!sent them a email about this telling them that, also posted it on the forums.will be interesting to see how they respond.

im just so pissed!i have been waiting for this game for over 5 freaking years! i was expecting it to be the end all to mob based games.i was expecting this to be 2010s san andreas, i was expecting this to be the best multiplatform game ever released!o, boy was i wrong.:(

well i beat RDR so mafia 2 i'm gonna play... I mean, i'm not gonna buy it but i'm gonna order it on gamefly... i played the demo of this game and i didn't find it horrible, i actually had a lil fun... So right after i'm done with kane and lynch i'm gonna try out mafia 2

I'm completely uninterested in mafia stuff. Maybe if it had been set in the twenties or thirties during prohibition, that might have piqued my interest a bit just because of the setting. But it wasn't.

Even if I was interested in it, I don't buy second-rate ports. We're hitting the pinnacle of this console generation, and I have to put off buying games I'm really interested in to make room for all the games I'm really, REALLY interested in. This "PS3 to hard fro us" crap can happily be ignored.

I got both RDR and Mafia II. RDR deserves all the sales and ratings because it gave me more bang for the buck. Mafia II is a lot more shorter and I really don't know where the 6 years of development went on.

the health system hurt my enjoyment with mafia II... i don't know how many times i had to sit behind cover and wait for the health to come back, only to repeat the process again once i popped out to shoot someone else... it brought the whole experience to a crashing halt near the end of the game... the story is the only thing that kept me playing to the end... it was a true mafioso experience....

but, i am glad RDR has done so well... it's easily the best gmaing experience of 2010 and thanks to the great reception, the wild west is here to stay... thank you R*!!

now i wish R* or bethesda would give the pirate genre something to keep it afloat... the last great genre that goes without a staple title, unless you still consider the 12+ year old sid meier's pirates... and i still do... we need something 21st century that represents the 17th century well...

I was with a woman from K2-NY last week, and I just had to mention to her how disappointed I was in M2, that how I had hoped for much greater M2 game than the the first Mafia, especially seeing how it's taken about 5-6 years. I did give Red Dead Revolver & Redemption all the props it deserves though.

I also gave her our PSXE site link & she told me she'd pass along both my thoughts, & all the thoughts of our PSXE followers to her boss.

This news isn't suprising. PS3 owners expect quality. If a game is a lousy port, falsely viewed as a open world game, and has mediocre gunplay (exposed in demo) then why would anyone buy it. I will definitely rent this game. The sad thing is I have been waiting a long time for this game. One site said it clearer than day...Red Dead took the expected and turned it into the unexpected while Mafia gives you everything you expected. I loved the first, but with all the great games coming out and great games already available to replay (GOWIII, DIRT 2, etc.)...I don't see a reason to buy this just for the story. I usually rent games for that and Mafia II is sadly looking like a rental. If I had money to waste...I would buy it though. It must be depressing for developers to spend all that time only to make a mediocre product. They now feel the same way the developers of Kane and Lynch feel (lol).

Red Dead Redemption is the game of the year by a long shot. By the time I was hunting legendary animals I was completely taken by the shear brilliance of this game. When it ended I could hardly believe it. It is everything that was great about those old westerns.

I'll be damned if it's not the very reason I bought The Man With No Name Blu Ray trilogy off of Amazon.